**-I had originally included my own personal rating system for several categories for these reviews, and intended to do it for each one, in this space, but I've since rethought that position as being information of little value. For one thing, I plan on soloing in several non-traditional printed formats (not just the main adventures), so they won't really fit the confines of a ranking system. So...enjoy the haphazard write-ups as they are!**
The boys stood before the 3 giant doors in the middle of the night and said, "who goes first?". After some hot-potato it was decided to pawn things off on Korag. The group laughed and said, "bet you get killed quick, you bare-footed idiot!" Korag ventured in...and he never ventured out.
Designed by Rick Loomis in 1976, this is the first official solo module released for the T&T system, and it's the only one I played back in high school (my mind was a blank slate, and the deja vu started hitting me after about 5 entries). The art is by Danforth, is really good, needless to say, and is spaced thru the adventure nicely. I wish I could afford the old spiral bound edition of this one...the first one. Still need to add it to my collection, and with it being the one that would be written for 4th ed., it's the one I need and will try to run again once I get it someday. "Buffalo Castle" is actually pretty cool. One has to remember there wasn't any template on how best to do this, so given that fact, it is quite astounding that it works as well as it does.
There's an awful lot of "go either east or west" commentary, and I hope you like "intersections"!
Expect nothing but a good, old fashioned dungeon crawl here. Not really much of a story, just go in and face a lot of hazards and try to get some gold. Korag fell into a trap at one point and got his paws on 50 gold pieces. Never did encounter a monster, though I had a ton of chances for that (I probably rolled half a dozen times for a wandering one). How did he meet his demise? Well, you'll just have to venture in and find out, but let's say you should have better scores than Korag for saving with! Even with my "do over" he ended up feedin' the worms. Well, there's one for the "Abyss" at some point.
The drunken lads had set up camp outside of the castle...they sit around the campfire bored. "The hell with this...think I'm going in there", Wulfus says to his brother. "Good luck, fool...and if you get out, you better gimme some of that coin!", says Willar.
"Well, we might as well have a drink.", says Signi the rogue, and he uncaps his wineskin, takes a swig and hands it over to Willar....about 20 minutes passes, and then Wulfus comes running out of one of the side-doors, "Damn! Weird magic, then a big nasty thing!", he's panting and laughing. His sword is dripping in goo and blood. "I'm going back in, but I gotta rest". His brother laughs, "Want me to see if mama can help?"....Wulfus rares back and punches Willar, knocking him to the ground...
2 comments:
The artist for the UK version of the rules & solos was Polly Wilson. If you scroll down the linked page a looooong way you will find a section specifically for T&T art:
https://archive.org/details/the-fantasy-worlds-of-polly-wilson/page/n15/mode/1up
Posted here rather than spoilers as this may be of more general interest.
Oh my gosh, I suspected as such: I love the art here. I'm going to have to try to get my hands on some of the UK stuff. This is fantastic stuff! Thanks for turning me on to it!
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